Madame Félix Gallois, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Graphite on paper, with touches of cold highlighting the jewelry, roughly 14 x 11 in. (35 x 27 cm); in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; use the download or zoom links under the image on their site.
Another of Ingres’ beautiful and deceptively simple graphite portraits — sensitive, incisive and dancing on that wonderful line between responding to a person and looking at lines on paper.
Her eyes don’t focus. They’re pointing in different directions.
Yes, and whether that’s Ingres drawing them while the sitter was looking in different directions or whether it reflects the sitter accurately may be more of a question than it seems. See my post on Ingres portrait of Madame Moitessier for a similar question.
A fine detail is she was née Nathalie-Rose Joachime Bochet at the age of 33. She was the cousin of the painter’s second wife.
I wish to own the book “Portraits by Ingres, image of an epoch”, with the jacket illustration of Madame Moitessier Seated.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was commemorated on a postage stamp of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from 1980. The 1856 painting ‘The Source’ is in the background of the stamp.
Ingres also painted Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne ( Napoléon Ier sur le trône impérial) , an 1806 portrait in his coronation costume.
https://www.wikiart.org/en/jean-auguste-dominique-ingres/self-portrait-at-the-age-of-79-years-old
Incredible choices made in this drawing. Have loved it for a long time.
